


so this is what age feels like

by vl19scriptfic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, a clip in the trailers inspired this whole thing but, and i thought i'd kicked my vignette habit for good but, apparently not, i waited to post until after the movie released, that's more to be safe than anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 15:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6811447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vl19scriptfic/pseuds/vl19scriptfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short vignette about Steve at Peggy's funeral in Civil War, and about life finally starting to catch up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so this is what age feels like

The coffin is 97 years heavy. 

The wood, he thinks as it presses up against the bare skin of his neck, is the same smooth wood of the time-worn door of his childhood home. 

The notes he hears floating up out of the pipe organ’s bronze towers are borrowed from the haphazardly upbeat melodies the organ grinder on the street corner used to play every morning; a gloriously melancholy reprise in minor key. 

The carpeted aisle is as endless today as it was on the day they laid Steve’s mother to rest, an infinite road with a deliberately invisible conclusion. 

The pallbearers step, rhythmic, metronomic, feet tapping the floor in perfect tandem; when Steve blinks they become the feet of an infantry, young and inexperienced and scared, knocked into synchronization by sheer force of will. 

He is as grounded yet weightless as the day he threw himself onto a grenade to protect a unit he’d barely begun to know. 

He’s felt all of this before. 

But no, this is new.

The towering church clock ticks, its hand gripping Steve’s, it’s face blank and unsympathetic, pulling him around and around and around once more. He’s skipped time, but time has not skipped him. 

He feels it in Sam’s kind words, in Wanda’s youthful compassion, in the mellow softening of Tony’s voice, in Natasha’s arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, in the restless memory of Bucky’s hand resting gently on his back. 

He feels it in the unlined youth of the face he sees in the mirror as he ties his bow tie the way his father taught him to, ages ago. 

The coffin presses into his shoulder and he feels it, years stacking upon years stacking upon years, stories stacking upon stories; historical texts upon heroic epics upon love poem anthologies upon blank journals. 

Years upon years. Upon so many years. 

Around and around and around once more. 

Another day, another funeral, another piece of his old life- gone. Eaten away by time like the fragile pages of a book; a tale that’s gone on for too long, the prelude disappearing into history before the ending peeks over the horizon ahead. 

A story that ceases to begin before it begins to cease. 

And when the coffin finally lifts, when the music halts and the pressure of the polished wood is gone, the weight remains. 

He still feels 97 years heavier.


End file.
